Obama Visits Returning War Dead

Friday

Oct 30, 2009 at 12:01 AM

President Obama took an overnight trip to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware to view the returning bodies of 18 American soldiers killed in Afghanistan on Monday.

President Obama traveled to Dover Air Force Base early Thursday morning, where he was to meet with family members and pay his respects as the bodies of 18 American troops killed this week in Afghanistan were returned to the United States.

It was the president’s first trip to the Delaware air base, the main point of entry for the nation’s war dead to return home. The trip was a symbolic one for Mr. Obama — intended to convey the gravity of his decision as he moves closer to announcing whether he will send more troops to Afghanistan.

The trip was not announced in advance. The president, wearing a dark suit and long overcoat, left the White House at 11:44 p.m. A small contingent of reporters and photographers accompanied Mr. Obama to Dover, where he arrived at 12:34 a.m. aboard Marine One.

October has been the deadliest month for U.S. troops in Afghanistan since the war began eight years ago, with 54 troops killed. This week alone, about two dozen soldiers died in attacks and helicopter crashes.

The bodies returning to Dover Air Force Base shortly after midnight included seven Army soldiers and three agents from the Drug Enforcement Agency who were killed when their helicopter crashed on Monday in rural Afghanistan. The bodies of eight soldiers killed in an attack on Monday also arrived on an Air Force C-17.

The schedule called for the flag-covered transfer cases containing the bodies to be unloaded from the cargo plane as Mr. Obama stood watch, in what the military calls a “dignified transfer,” where soldiers carry the cases with sorrowful precision. The brief ceremonies have been open to cameras — if family members agree — ever since the Pentagon reversed a policy established by the previous administration that prohibited news coverage of the returning war dead.

Before the ceremony, Mr. Obama met with several family members in the chapel of the Air Force base.

Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, traveled with the president to Dover. He told reporters earlier that Mr. Obama was “probably getting to the end” of his decision-making process on his military plans for Afghanistan. The recent rise in violence would not necessarily influence the strategy, he said, but it was weighing on the president.

“The hardest task that he has on any given day is signing the condolence letter to a loved one who’s lost a son or a daughter or a husband, a wife, in Iraq or Afghanistan, or serving our country overseas,” Mr. Gibbs said.

The trip early Thursday morning came several hours after Mr. Obama signed a defense spending bill, which he said “reaffirms our commitment to our brave men and women in uniform and our wounded warriors.” Three days ago, Mr. Obama spoke to soldiers and Marines at a Naval Air Station in Florida, as well as with family members of military personnel killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The president was scheduled to return to the White House only a few hours before sunrise on Thursday morning. He will meet with the Joint Chiefs of Staff on Friday, his seventh major session on Afghanistan since beginning his review.

Never miss a story

Choose the plan that's right for you.
Digital access or digital and print delivery.